marionettes
by mermaidss
Summary: they're all just puppets in the end. Jack/OC
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I might be a little late for the party, but I've been working on this since I watched the movie last year, and seeing as I'm nearly finished, I thought I'd share what I've got so far. (Also, I only own my OCs)**

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><p>"Ladies and gentlemen." The girl casts her gaze over her audience, tourists of every colour on the boat gliding over the East River in Brooklyn. "For my next trick, I'm going to need a volunteer." She looks at a little boy with white-blonde hair standing at the very front. He seemed to have been paying attention for her previous two tricks, and children often are the most fun to entertain. "What about you, little man?"<p>

He's six, maybe seven, and he flashes a bright, hopeful smile at his mother. The woman nods encouragingly, and the boy says, "Yes, please."

The girl kneels down so she and the boy are at eye level with each other. "What's your name, then?"

"Charlie," he answers, trying to sound grown up.

The girl grins widely and sticks her hand out. "How's it going, Charlie? I'm Skylar." He shakes her hand a little too enthusiastically, the gold bangles on her wrist jingle wildly. Retracting her hand and reaching into her worn coat pocket, "So I want you to pick a card, 'kay?"

"Yeah, okay."

She pulls out a deck of cards and makes a big show of shuffling them. The audience 'oohs' and 'aahs' in response. She fans the deck out, faces cast down and Charlie thinks for a moment before picking his card.

"Okay, look at it, show everyone but me." Charlie does so, and then she gestures for him to put the card back into the deck. "Now, folks, my _fabulous _assistant Charlie here is gonna say the magic word, and his card will reveal itself."

She looks at Charlie, and the boy says with a shrug, "Abracadabra?"

"Works for me." She waves a delicate hand decorated with rings over the deck and then pulls a card out, showing it to the audience.

"That's not my card!" Charlie points out loudly. Skylar's eyes go wide, and she takes another look at the card, the Three of Hearts.

"What?"

"That's not my card," Charlie says again, and she sighs loudly.

"I hate it when things go the way you expect." Her face brightens again, despite seeing the boy's disappointed face. "Charlie, here's my deck of cards. Check if your card's in there."

Charlie takes the deck in a small hand and tries to find his card. Pouting after he has gone through all the cards, "It's not there."

"Of course it isn't," she says with a quirk of an eyebrow. "You just gotta look a little better." She smiles brightly, stands up, her warm brown eyes twinkling in excitement. Her favourite part of any magic trick is seeing the expressions of confusing and bafflement on the audience's faces. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd tilt your heads upwards ─ say, sixty degrees, I believe my lovely friend, the Queen of Spades would like you to pay attention to her?"

She doesn't turn around, but she knows her tricks worked from the looks on everyone's faces. Wide eyes, hanging down, murmurs of "How did she do that?", "How is it even possible?", and many other things dominating the buzz. She knows that if the audience's faces hadn't been like that, then Charlie's card ─ the Queen of Spades ─ wouldn't be on the mast of the tourist boat, a flag instead of an ordinary paper card, blowing gently in the cool March wind.

"How did you do that?" Charlie breathes.

Skylar grins. "You really wanna know?"

Charlie clasps his hands together, his pretty green eyes sparkling. He bounces on his heels, positively brimming with excitement. "Please, please."

"Magic," Skylar whispers, and Charlie squeals in delight.

She dips into a sweeping bow, and is met with a round of applause from her audience. This prompts her to take her scruffy fedora off her head and use it as a bucket to collect her earnings. Ten dollar bills, twenty dollar bills, she swears she sees a fifty (seriously, is this _all _she has to do for a fifty?) and then she thanks her audience again.

"I'll be on the upper deck now," she tells them, "to see if I can bring a little magic to the other tourists' lives. Feel free to follow."

A few actually _do _follow her up the stairs to the upper deck (Charlie included), but everyone's more than surprised to see someone else entertaining (or trying to entertain) the other tourists.

Immediately, Skylar takes a disliking to this magician. The Brooklyn tourist boats are widely known as _her _territory, where _she _makes her money, and this guy is just about to take that away from her.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the magician is saying to the audience, "I am the next great magician and I will give one hundred dollars to anyone who can tell me how this trick is done."

Skylar scoffs, loudly, and the magician looks at her, his eyebrows raised. The first thing she thinks is, 'Holy hell, he looks arrogant.' The second thing might be that he's very attractive or that the leather jacket he's wearing looks great on him. But ─

He looks arrogant, and he's stealing her customers, so she doesn't give a shit about how good-looking he is.

The magician (whom she figures is her age, give or take a year or two) holds up a metal spoon and keeps talking to his (rightfully _her_) audience, though his eyes are still on her.

"I have an ordinary spoon from Mel's deli right here in Brooklyn." He taps it on the railing as if to prove it's real. "Check it out." The audience begins to stand up as if they're finally taking interest in him. "Please pay very, _very _close attention, 'cause I'm about to bend this spoon with my mind."

He concentrates and carefully brings his hand down, and the handle of the spoon slowly bends to his will. The crowd sounds impressed, and Charlie as well, but when Skylar looks back, she can see a man with scruffy hair and glasses watching the magician with narrowed eyes. The magician holds up the spoon and the audience begins to clap, Charlie definitely the most excited of them all.

But then the scruffy guy pushes past her (quite _rudely_, she'll admit) and grabs the magician's wrist.

"What's this?" the scruffy guy says, making another grab for the magician.

"Woah, what are you doing?"

"Look at this," the man says, pulling an identical, straight spoon from the magician's sleeve. "Looks like we've got a spoon in the sleeve!" He takes the magician's shoulder. "You can give me my hundred bucks."

"You said you would!" Another man yells, and Skylar rolls her eyes.

"You're a better magician than him," Charlie says loudly to Skylar as the magician pulls his own wallet out and gives the scruffy guy his money, and the magician shoots the little boy a glare. Charlie responds by pulling a face.

Then the magician puts his wallet back into his jean pocket, but Skylar doesn't miss how he swipes the man's watch and wallet as well. She has to commend him on this, it seems like she's the only one who noticed.

The magician then leaves, and Skylar follows him after waving goodbye to Charlie. While following him, she bumps shoulders with a guy in a dark hoodie.

"Oh. Sorry, man," she says, dusting off the guy's shoulder. He says nothing, and Skylar apologises again before springing gracefully over the gap between the boat and the paving.

"Stop that guy!" she hears the scruffy guy shout. "Stop that guy in the leather jacket, he's got my wallet!"

The magician simply keeps his head down and carries on walking. She manages to catch up with him quickly once they're far enough from the boat, and she clears her throat, only to have him paying no attention.

"Hey, pal." She then grabs the magician's arm. "This is my territory, so I'd like it if you could take your mediocre tricks and scram."

"I'm sorry, but exactly who said this was your territory?"

"Every magician in Brooklyn knows it."

"I didn't."

She faux grimaces, sucking air through her teeth in a pitying manner. "My bad, every magician of note. Your trick was awful, by the way, but_ well done _on getting the guy's watch and wallet. Your mother must be proud to know that her son's a pickpocket."

The magician raises a thick eyebrow. "A guy's gotta eat."

"Admittedly, the guy on the boat was a dick, but seriously, jacking his stuff? People like you give magicians a bad name. Criminals, thieves, con artists." The magician shrugs, and Skylar sticks her hands in her jacket pockets. Time to wrap things up; she doesn't really want to be lingering around this weirdo for too long. "Just stop stealing my audience, yeah?"

"Yeah." He salutes her. "It was ─" he clears his throat "─ _great _meeting you. Hopefully our paths never cross."

"Hopefully," she quips, and he grins again before lazily turning on his heel and sauntering off.

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><p><strong>AN: And there you go! My faceclaim for Skylar is Chloe Bennett, and another OC will be revealed in the next chapter. :D**


	2. Chapter 2

**_A/N: I am so so so sorry for the delay. Thank you all for the lovely feedback I've gotten!_**

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><p>She finds the card in her usually unused jacket pocket just as she's getting ready to leave for work later in the evening after a day or errands.<p>

It falls out of her pocket as she shrugs the jacket off in her little apartment. Bending over and scooping the card into her palm, she tosses her jacket over the sofa and examines it.

It's large, and on one of the sides there's a man, with a peaceful expression on his face, hanging from his foot. She traces her thumb over it, trying to figure out who got close enough to slip that into her pocket.

The man in the dark hoodie from ealier in the afternoon. He knocked shoulders with her and she's almost certain that it was him. She flips the card over, and her breath catches in her throat as she recognises the image on the background.

This can't be happening. There's no _way _that this is really happening.

She takes note of the date, and the location on the card, closing her eyes and visualising the area of the city. She's been in that area once or twice, but she doesn't quite know it like the back of her hand. Two days from now at a very specific time, she'll take a bus into the heart of New York, because someone considers her very good at what she does.

Her head is spinning from excitement as she quickly gets ready and grabs her black and white striped messenger bag, hurrying out of her apartment to Balzaretti's, the fairly upclass bar run by one of New York's scariest women.

"Evening, Rosanna," Skylar greets the owner as she hops over the counter. The woman in question raises her hand in a wave and quickly directs one of the other bartenders to the far side of the bar.

"You're early," Rosanna notes, her New-York Italian accent thick on her tongue. "Thought I was gonna have to send Tony to pick you up again."

"That was one time," Skylar defends herself, shivering slightly at the memory of the burly bald man at her door, "and I was sick. But I've pretty much set my watch earlier so I'm not late for anything."

"That's good," Rosanna says with a firm nod. "We open in twenty. Get the counters clean." And with that, she sweeps away in a delicate swirl of her silk dress and Skylar exhales steadily, thankful that she caught her employer in a fairly good mood.

Through the evening, she serves her customers with a bright smile. A lot of them are regulars, Jordan and his friends who come every Wednesay and Friday, Carrie and her sister who enjoy margeritas after a long day, Freddie, who spends his time picking up girls and Tom, this guy who constantly flirts with her.

As she's wiping the glasses and hanging them upside down on the rack above her head, the bell rings, singalling someone entering the bar. She looks up, more out of habbit than anything else and a grin plasters itself to her face when she sees a tall man with dark skin and short black hair lingering just by the door. He spots her and approaches her at the counter.

"How's my favourite magician?" the man asks, leaning his elbows on the counter.

"She's great." Skylar shrugs, leaving the cloth under the counter. "How's my favourite ex-boyfriend?"

"He's great."

"So what brings you to this lovely bar, Kaleb?"

"You know I always come here."

"Not alone," she teases. "Did you meet someone new?"

"At the gallery, yeah."

"Is he hot?"

"You know I only go for the good-looking ones, Skylar."

"Explains why you went out with me."

"In all technicality, you turned me gay."

"You're a dick."

"I love you."

She rolls her eyes and brings out a tall beer glass. "So can I get you your usual?"

Kaleb takes a seat at the counter, right in front of her, shaking his head. "I'll wait for my date."

Someone further along the counter waves her hand for another drink, and Skylar serves the woman before moving back to Kaleb.

"So, tell me about him. How'd you meet?"

"He came by the gallery yesterday. He was interested in buying one of my paintings and Jess was showing him around. You know which one he picked?"

"The one you painted of that awesome homeless man with the gorgeous smile in Central Park?" A thoughtful smile crosses her lips as she recalls the huge grin that tracked across the man's lips when Kaleb insisted paying him for his services, even when he refused.

"Nah, you know that one's saved for you. He liked the one I finished last week."

"The one you were painting when I was at your place? The weird abstract one?"

"Yup. So I'm there, and Jess introduces us, and he's like 'Your work is incredible.' He's got this really attractive accent. English or something, I think. Anyway, so he pays for the painting and says he'll come back later to fetch it, and Jess says to me, 'He's totally into you.'"

"And then?"

"I don't believe her, because how did she even know he's gay or bisexual or whatever? But then he comes around again, and he asks if I'm doing anything Wednesday night. And here we are."

"Oh wow. So ─ hang on ─ did _you _pick Balzaretti's?"

"Yup."

"Um ─ why? Why would you pick the place where your ex-girlfriend works? You trying to make me jealous?"

Kaleb laughs. "You're my best friend, moron, and your judgement is literally the best. If you think he's a dick, you'll tell me."

Skylar nods, rolling her eyes goodnaturedly. The bell rings again and she and Kaleb both look over the latter's shoulder. Kaleb whistles softly, and Skylar doesn't manage to hide her smile. A dark haired man looks around, revealing pearly white teeth in a smile when he sees Kaleb at the counter.

"Should I go? Should I stay?" Skylar asks quickly, her eyes darting from the guy to Kaleb.

"Stay, meet him quickly, get our drinks, fuck off for the rest of the night."

"Oh, you're nice," she says with a playful smile. The guys takes a seat next to Kaleb, and she watches as they greet each other.

The guy then introduces himself as Jamie, a college graduate beginning a career in New York. He's from London, and he's pretty much the nicest guy Kaleb's ever went out with, in her opinion.

She gets them their drinks and tells Jamie that it was a pleasure to meet him, and he says, "Hopefully, we'll be seeing each other around," and Skylar laughs as a goofy smile tugs at Kaleb's lips.

"Hopefully," she then says, and smiles at him again before leaving them alone for the rest of the evening.

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><p><em><strong>AN: Kaleb's faceclaim is Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. I kind of wanted Skylar to have someone who was **_**hers. _There's hardly a mention of anyone in any of the other Horsemen's lives, and I didn't want it to be the same for Skylar. He pops up often in the story, so I hope you like him! (Also, he was the OC I was thinking of introducing.) Please review, and I'll try to have chapter 3 up sooner. (:_**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Soooo... four months... *nervous laughter***

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><p>Two days find her on a bus on her way into Manhattan. She's lightly tracing her finger over the card in the pocket of her bag, occasionally checking the clock on her cell phone to make sure she's not late.<p>

The bus rolls to a steady halt eventually, about five minutes from the apartment if you were walking. She hops off the bus and takes a deep breath, smiling brightly to herself and hiking her messenger bag higher onto her shoulder because beginning her short journey with a slight spring in her step.

She's on her way to the place when she sees him, the guy in the leather jacket. He's coming from the opposite direction, a bag dangling from across his body and his eyes on the apartment as they both walk to the door. They stop a few feet from the door facing each other, and Skylar looks at him. He stares right back at her, and she realises that he doesn't even recognise her.

"I know you!" she exclaims with a false smile plastered to her lips. The man's eyes finally flicker in recognition. "You're the asshole from the tourist boat the other day!"

"Right, right, you're the territorial freak." Immediately, her smile drops, and she makes a show of rolling her eyes. He sticks his hand out, she eyes it with her lips set in a straight line.

"I take it you got a card as well?" she asks as he retracts his hand. He fishes a tarot card out of his pocket, showing it to her. "Death. How fancy."

"What about you?" She hands him her own card, and while looking at it, he says, "I don't get tarot cards."

"Well, if yours have anything to do with your future ─" she condescendingly pats him on his chest. "Sorry." And she shoulders her bag and plucks her card from between his fingers before grinning widely and opening the main door of the apartment block.

"I'm Skylar, by the way," she throws over her shoulder as they begin the ascent to the apartment. "Skylar Day-Richards. Last name's a little long, just Day's good."

"Jack Wilder."

He follows her up the stairs, initiating a short conversation, and she figures that there's no harm in talking to him.

("When did you get your card?"

"I found it later that day we met."

"And what do you think about this whole thing?"

"I try not to think about stuff like this, honestly. 'Cause if you overthink things, you end up ruining them."

"Uh -"

"It doesn't make sense, I know, but that's how I see things."

"So right now you're...?"

"Just seeing what this is about. Keep an open mind, Wilder.")

They reach the particular floor to see three other people waiting at the closed apartment door. None of them look familiar to Skylar, but hey, she's all open-minded about this deal, so she puts on her friendliest smile, ready to introduce herself.

One of the two men there, a young-ish guy with a mop of dark hair waves his card at the older man and the red-haired woman before turning around, looking at her and Jack curiously for a moment.

"No way," Jack says, pushing past Skylar. She makes an offended sound and looks to the woman. "_J. Daniel Atlas_? Dude, I've seen everything that you have ever done - I mean like - I - I idolise you, seriously."

"I'm Skylar," she drowns the seemingly great J. Daniel Atlas out as he says something back. She sticks her hand out to the woman. "Skylar Day-Richards."

"Henley Reeves," the red-haired woman says with a smile, taking her extended her hand. "This is Merritt McKinney."

"You with him?" Merritt asks, tipping his head in Jack's direction.

"God, no," she snorts. Merritt looks at her for a moment and shakes his head, a barely-there grin on his lips. "We just met at the entrance."

"Lucky you," Henley murmurs under her breath, flashing Skylar a bright smile when Skylar chuckles.

"Did you two get one of these?" Merritt directs the question at both young magicians, holding up his own tarot card. Jack grins and reaches into his jacket pocket while she fumbles in her messenger bag.

"Yeah - yeah. Death." Jack holds his card up, allowing everyone else to get a look. He's got a nervous grin in his lips, and Skylar wonders if it's because of what she said about his future state.

"What about you, kid?" The great J. Daniel Atlas asks her.

"I'm not a _kid_," Skylar sneers in response. "I'm like his age." She tips her head in Jack's direction.

"Which is...?" Daniel asks.

"No, no," Merritt says, putting a dramatic finger to his temple. "Let me guess, twenty-two?" Jack shakes his head. "Twenty ─ ah! Twenty-three."

"'Kay, no. I'm younger. A few months and I'll be the not-so-big double two."

"So, what was your card?" Daniel presses, shooting a glare at Merritt.

Between her two fingers, she lifts her card. "The ─ um ─ Hanged Man."

"The High Priestess," Henley tells the small group.

"The Lover." Skylar rolls her eyes at the way Daniel says it, as if he's a real Don Juan, and she laughs loudly when Henley coughs, "Three minutes," enjoying the moment where Daniel looks truly offended.

"Hermit," Merritt says, almost disappointedly, and Skylar shoots him a grin.

"Uh - so if you don't mind me asking, what are we doing?" Skylar asks, finally noticing the closed door. "Are we waiting for someone or...?"

"The door's locked," the rest of the initial group replies in unison.

Skylar looks back at Jack, who's got a mischievous grin on his lips. "Oh - no, no, nothing's ever locked." He approaches the door, replaces his card for what she suspects is his lock-picking equipment, and effortlessly unlocks the door.

"Sweet," Skylar remarks, an impressed expression clouding her features. It doesn't come as a surprise though; stealing watches, wallets, picking locks, this guy's a regular novice criminal, and she expected as much.

She pulls out her cellphone and activates the flashlight application as they file through the door, aiding the others in illuminating the pitch dark apartment.

"What is this place?" she hears Henley ask as she follows the four into the apartment.

She sticks close to Merritt, poking her head through the few rooms leading off from the hallways. The apartment, in one word, is a complete dump. The wallpaper is peeling, the bathroom is filthy, and don't even get her started on the smell. Jack comments on the fact that the apartment's freezing, and she expected as much; there's no way a place as gross as this has heating.

The group files into what Skylar figures is the living room; a bare space with only a white rose, a pitcher of water and a card on the discoloured wood floor. As Daniel bends over, Skylar can't help but noticed the strange pattern in the floor.

"What does it say?" Skylar looks back at Daniel, who's looking at the card.

"Now you don't."

And Henley picks up the rose, quoting Shakespeare as she saunters over to the pitcher, dropping the rose into the water, and Skylar will admit that she's a bit worried, because this is so weird and fucked up, and she wouldn't be surprised if this was where some trigger-happy psycho would burst into the apartment, raining bullets on his helpless, gullible victims.

So when the water drains from the pitcher smoothly, snaking its way over the floor, she only scoffs.

"Yeah, no, I'm out," she announces, but Merritt catches her wrist as she makes for the front door, shaking his head.

"You can't just _leave_," Daniel says, his eyebrows raised. "You're here for a reason." He coughs. "Though I can't possibly imagine who'd be stupid enough to give you a card." She huffs and shakes Merritt's hand off her wrist, watching as the water fills the sunken pattern on the ground.

She jumps when the pattern sinks even further and gas begins to rise from the ground.

"It's gas," Jack points out, disbelief and ─ is that panic she picks up? ─ lacing his tone.

"Relax," Merritt says, "it's just dry ice."

But she can't relax, and even when Daniel and Merritt start bickering again, she shoots Jack as worried glance, to which he responds by shrugging helplessly. No one has any idea what the hell is going on, and while everyone else thinks it's a little cool, she doesn't like it one bit.

"Okay, lovebirds," Henley says firmly, stopping the two men from talking, "get a room. Danny, be honest, did you do this?"

"No," Daniel replies, a little offended, and he goes ahead as asks Jack the same question.

Jack shakes his head. "No. I wish…" He looks at Skylar. "What about you, Day-Richards?"

"Totally, because I can afford to fuck with people like you for the hell of it."

"You're so _ladylike_," Daniel sneers.

"I've been arrested three times for aggravated assault, Atlas," she lies. In all reality, she wouldn't be able to hurt a fly. She doesn't notice it, but her nose wrinkles and she almost subconsciously licks her lips. "Keep talking, and we'll make it a fourth."

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><p><strong>AN: I totally haven't abandoned this, but sometimes you go through these periods where you don't even want to look at your writing, and this has been one of those. I'll try to sort myself out. On another note, thanks for the reviews, and please keep them coming! It's really really nice seeing what you guys think about this. **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hi. I'm a mess. **

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><p>It takes two weeks for the apartment to be cleaned up and redone by professionals. In that time, Skylar stays well away from the other Horsemen, trying to make the most of her last days before she has to see them every single day.<p>

Kaleb, despite hating every inch of this plan, helps her move her tiny amount of furniture into the storage unit holding most of his artworks, seeing as she won't be living in her apartment any longer.

"Dude," Kaleb tells her on the last day of packing, the day she moves in with the Horsemen. "I swear there was more furniture that was _yours_."

She shrugs, looking around her bedroom. The only thing really missing is the unused antique desk in the corner as well as her personal effects; photos, posters, books, the like.

"Remember, K, I got nothing. Nada. I'm poor as all hell."

Kaleb rolls his eyes and seals the box with her vinyls and a small collection of snowglobes. "So I'm keeping all this with me?"

"I don't trust any of those guys."

"You're living with them." Kaleb pauses, his handsome face twisting into a frown. "Why are you living with them again?"

"Business, Kaleb. I told you. They're my new colleagues."

Kaleb shakes his head. "I don't like this at all. Look, you know you can come by my apartment if they start acting all creepy, right?"

"Yeah, yeah." She waves her hand dismissively. She picks up another cardboard box and balances it on the one he's carrying. "Careful with those, hey. My snowglobes and my records are in there."

"Yeah, yeah." He can see over the boxes, but he's still very careful in moving out of her bedroom into the tiny hallway and then to the front door where her bags are waiting.

"I just gotta get this ─" she holds up her apartment key and an envelope filled with her last payment "─ to Mrs Hernandez. I'll meet you at your car?"

Kaleb nods and steps over her bags with the boxes in his arms. He disappears down the stairs and she pops to the apartment across from hers, knocking at the door and beaming at her old landlady.

"I'm going to miss you, dear," Mrs Hernandez says with a sorrowful shake of her head. "You made managing the apartment a wonderful experience."

"Oh, please, Mrs Hernandez. You're only gonna miss me because I looked after your cats and watered your plants when you weren't here." The old woman sighs before giving Skylar's hand a squeeze. Skylar then presses her keys and the envelope into her landlady's aging palm before saying, "I'll miss you too, Christina."

"I hope you'll come back," Christina says, a smile on her face.

"I'll see where the wind takes me." And she waves at Christina before going back to her apartment and fetching her bags.

In the car, Kaleb's quiet, and because he's never been a quiet person, Skylar knows that he's still not on board with this idea, despite her many assurances. He drives her to the new apartment, scowling when she insists that she'll go in by herself.

"But you'll need help with your bags," Kaleb says flatly. She merely shakes her head, because she doesn't exactly have a full closet of clothing, and the bags are much lighter than she expected. "What if they try to murder you?"

"You're just being dumb, K," she laughs. "I'll Taser them if they try anything." Kaleb glares at her, and she leans forward, kissing his cheek playfully. "I'll be fine, Kaleb. Stop being such a mom."

"I'm just worried."

"I'll call you if anything happens, yeah?" And Kaleb grumbles a reply that sounds something like, "You fucking better," and she hops of the car and saunters to the trunk, taking her duffel bags from inside the trunk. She slings one over her shoulder and carries the other in her hand, and she flashes a bright smile at Kaleb before briefly setting down one of the bags to open the door.

When she reaches the new apartment, she finds that the door is already open, and a mix of voices is wafting through from inside. She hurries inside, wondering how she was late, even when she tried to leave early.

They're arguing over sleeping arrangements, momentarily stopping when she dramatically drops her bags on the floor.

"You're late," Daniel sneers, and she rolls her eyes, banishing the thought of using her Taser on this self-absorbed asshole.

"I'm right on time, Daniel." She turns to Henley, having taken an instant liking to her when they first met. "So what did I miss?"

"We've decided on beds," Daniel cuts in. "Henley, Merritt and I are getting the three bedrooms."

"So we're stuck with the sofas?" Jack asks. The way his eyebrows are knitted together makes Skylar wonder if he's regretting his poor choice in idols.

Daniel responds with a careless shrug. "You're the youngest. It's only fair."

"No, it's not," Skylar fires back. Daniel's eyes dart to her and one of his eyebrows creep up his forehead, challenging her to go on. "You're the worst person, so you shouldn't get a room. I gave up my apartment literally 10 minutes away from this shitshack, so I actually refuse to get the sofa." She thinks for a moment. "Who's willing to let me win it from them?"

Henley grins at her, shaking her head, and Daniel only snorts, turning away. It's Merritt who volunteers, much to her surprise.

(She was expecting half-hearted excuses from _all_ of them as to why they needed beds.

"I have back problems."

"I have a fear of sofas."

"Don't look at me. I was the first person here.")

"So, what?" Jack asks. "You gonna play rock, paper, scissors?"

"Nah..." Skylar says thoughtfully. "That's gonna take too long, especially if Merritt insists on a 'best two out of three'. Hey, McKinney? I'm thinking of a number between one and a hundred."

"Seventy-four," Merritt answers immediately

"Why'd you think that?"

"Lucky guess."

"Not so lucky. My number was two."

"You could be lying," Daniel points out.

"No, no," Merritt says, putting up a hand to silence Daniel. "I could tell she wasn't."

"How?" Daniel frowns, his gaze darting from Merritt's grin to Skylar's even bigger one.

"See, when she's lying, her nose wrinkles and she licks her lips." Merritt's eyebrow quirks and he lifts a hand, making it act as a wall between his lips and the three other Horsemen. "Aggravated assault?" he mouths. She grins sheepishly and rolls her eyes in a good-natured way.

"So, now that that's sorted," Daniel drawls, clapping his hands in a way that's so sarcastic it makes Skylar want to break them, "you can stop whining."

And when Jack, Merritt and Henley look over at the girl, there's no mistaking the vehemence in her cocoa eyes. She hates him and she's not going to lie; killing him wouldn't be completely dissatisfying. Still, she smiles brightly at Daniel and picks up her duffel bags, letting on hang on the crook of her elbow and the other hang between her fingers.

"Cool, cool," she chirps. "Thanks, Merritt," and she starts for the room that she knows is the biggest, with a view onto the road underneath the window and a built-in closet larger than the rest. "Jack and Merritt, you're more than welcome to keep your clothes and shit in my closet. I don't take up much space."

A few hours find the group back in the living room, empty boxes of pizza littering the floor, feet on the coffee tables, bellies warm and full. They're all sitting idly; things are a bit awkward because they don't know much about each other, and dinner was just spent asking each other about pointless questions.

And awkward small talk is one of the things that Skylar really can't stand, so she clears her throat in an attempt to draw the attention to her. She'll try to make this a little more comfortable for everyone; the weird looks between Henley and Daniel and the even _weirder_ looks between Daniel and Merritt are very disconcerting.

"So I read something so funny online, the other day," she says, and the four sets of eyes turn up towards her. "It was some stupid 'College Humour' thing about roommates we _are_ technically roommates, right? Anyway, it was about getting rid of your roommates by basically annoying the shit out of them."

And obviously everyone knows that the only person worth getting rid of is Daniel; each of them (but Jack less so) figured it out within five minutes of meeting this prick.

"Sounds like fun," Jack quips, and Merritt side-eyes Daniel.

Noticing Merritt's look, Daniel looks at Skylar. Really, really, looks at her. One of those looks that are supposed to knock you off balance or shake you to the core because they're just one of the most menacing looks. "Try anything, you'll see what'll happen."

"Yeah?" she challenges. "What'll happen, Daniel?"

Daniel smiles at her, a tight, close-lipped smile, and he doesn't even stutter. "I'll destroy you."

She takes care from allowing her nose to wrinkle and keeps her tongue in her mouth. "Unlikely. Aggravated assault, remember? I've been told by the ladies in the correctional center that I'm particularly..." She bares her teeth at Daniel. "Vicious."

"I don't think anyone's doubting it," Jack points out.

"I have a feeling we're gonna be great friends, Skylar," Henley cuts in, grinning at the younger girl.

"That's also what the ladies at the correctional center said."


End file.
